Survey: SMBs are Getting Serious about Information Protection

Symantec’s 2010 SMB Information Protection Survey found that small and midsized businesses are now making protecting their information their highest IT priority, as opposed to 15 months ago when a high percentage had failed to enact even the most basic safeguards.

SMBs surveyed rank data loss and cyber attacks as their top business risks, ahead of traditional criminal activity, natural disasters and terrorism. They are now spending an average of $51,000 on information protection, including computer security, backup recovery and archiving and disaster preparedness.

Of the SMBs surveyed, 74 percent are somewhat/extremely concerned about losing electronic information. In fact, 42 percent have lost confidential or proprietary information in the past. As a result, 100 percent have seen direct losses such as lost revenue or direct financial costs.

Lost devices is a big issue for SMBs. Almost two-thirds have lost devices such as laptops, smartphones or iPads in the past 12 months and 100 percent have at least some devices that have no password protection and cannot be remotely wiped of their data to protect their confidential business information if lost.

Cyber Attacks are a crucial threat to SMBs. Seventy-three percent of the respondents were victims of cyber attacks in the past year and 100 percent of those SMBs saw losses such as expensive downtime, loss of important corporate data as well as personally identifiable information of customers or employees.